The diamond drill. (Crystal Falls, Iron County, Mich.) 1887-1996, 1887-05-14

dldS Tor inc iOdtubOut anu impure lit
erature that has come upon this coun-
try in the shape OF novels, like
freshet overlooking all the banks OF
decency and common sensel They
are coming from some Of the most
celebrated publishing houses of the
country, They are coming with rec
ommendation of some of our religious
newspapers. They lie on your center
table To curse your children, and blast
with their internal fires generations
unborn. You find these books In the
desk of the school miss, in the trunk
of the young man, in the steamboat
cabin, on the table of the hotel recep-
ton room.
charge you. in the first place, to
stand aloof from all books that give
false pictures OF human life. Life is
neither tragedy nor farce. Men
are not all either knaves nor heroes.
Women are neither angels nor furies.
and yet. If you depended upon much
of the literature of the day, you would
get the idea that life, instead OF being
something earnest something practi-
cal, is fitful and fantastic and ex-
travagant thing. How poorly pre-
pared are that young man and woman
for the duties of to-day who spent last
night wading through brilliant pas
sages descriptive Of magnificent knav-
cry and wickednessl The man will be
looking all day long for his heroine, in
the tin shop, by the forge, in the fac
tory, in the counting room, and will
not find her, and he will be dissatisfied.
| A man who gives himself up 20 the
indiscriminate reading of novels will
be nerveless, inane, and nuisance.
lie will be ft neither for the store, nor
the shop, nor the field.
Again, abstain from all those books
which, while they have some good
things about them, have also an adj
mixture OF evil. You have read books
that had two elements in them the
good and the bad. Which stuck TO
your The bad The heart of most
people is like a sieve, which lets the
small particles of gold fall through,
but keeps the great cinders. Once in
a while there is mind like load
stone, which, plunged amid steel and
brass filings, gathers up the steel and
repels the brass. But it is generally
just the opposite. If you attempt TO
plunge through a fence of burrs to
get one blackberry, you will get more
burrs than black berries. You can not
afford TO read bad book however
good you are.
There is always something sus-
picious about a bad book ] never
knew an exception something sus-
picious in the index or style OF illus
tration. This venomous reptile almost
always carries warning rattle.
Again: i charge you TO stand OF
from all those books which corrupt the
Imagination and infame the passions.
/ do not refer now TO that kind Of a
book which the villain has under his
coat waiting for the school TO get out,
and then, looking both ways to see
that there is no policeman around the
block, offers the book 10 your son on
his way home / do not speak of that
kind of literature, but that which
evades the law and comes ont in pol
ished style, and with acute plot sounds
the tocsin that rouses up all the baser
passions of the soul.
Again, abstain from those books
which are apologize of crime. 1t is a
sad thing that some OF the best and
most beautiful book binderies, and
some OF the finest rhetoric, have been
brought TO make sin attractive. Vice
is horrible thing, anyhow. IL is born
in shame, and dies bowling in the
darkness. In this world 1t is scourged
with q whip OF scorpions, but after
wards the thunders OF Gods wrath
pursue IL across a boundless desert,
beating il with ruin and woe.
Cursed be the books that try TO make
impurity decent, and crime attractive,
and hypocrisy noble! Cursed be the
books that swarm with libertines and
dcsparadoes, who make the brain of
the young people whirl with villainy.
Ye authors who write them, we pub
fishers who print them, We booksellers
who distribute them, shall be cut TO
pieces, il not By an aroused communi-
ty then, at last. by the hail of divine
vengeance, which shall sweep Co the
lowest pits OF Eerdition all ye murder.
ers OF souls. | tell you, though you
may escape in this world, you will be
ground at last under the hoof OF eter-
nal calamities, and you will be chained
60 the rock, and you will have the vul.
lures OF despair clawing at your soul,
and those whom you have destroyed
will come around 60 torment you, and